After 22 years in elected office, Curtis Hertel was forced out of the State Senate due to term-limits.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, one of his top allies, appointed him to be her chief lobbyist and he was responsible for shepherding through her FY2024 budget, the largest budget in Michigan’s history at $81.7 million budget.
Former Senate Democrat Leader Jim Ananich, the CEO of the Greater Flint Healthcare Coalition, approached Hertel with a request for $1.5 million in taxpayer money. Hertel secured the $1.5 million from the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, where Hertel’s wife, Elizabeth, is the director.
The budget was signed, Friday, June 30, 2023, securing the $1.5 million for Ananich. Hertel resigned his position as chief lobbyist that day, and the following Monday, July 3rd (just 3 days later), Hertel was given a $108,000 contract from the Greater Flint Healthcare Coalition.
Honest services fraud is defined in federal statute 18 U.S.C. §1346 as a scheme to defraud another of the intangible right to honest services through a scheme to violate a fiduciary duty by bribery or kickbacks.
In July, an ethics watchdog group filed a complaint with Michigan’s Inspector General, requesting an investigation